


When He Comes Back

by swooning



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 20:32:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3704159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swooning/pseuds/swooning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Cylon-controlled New Caprica, Laura looks to the sky and think about why the time was never right before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When He Comes Back

It hadn’t happened when they first met, when the heat from their initial friction could have turned either way, to interest or to animosity. There was a war on, there was no time, he was too full of adrenaline, she still too shocked by her death sentence. It would have been casual sex, and it was hardly a time for  _anything_  casual, even if either of them had been the type. Which neither of them was. 

But there had been interest… oh, yes, undeniable interest. His voice. Her legs. His eyes. Her scent. Neither of them was blind, or devoid of the other senses that told them that, while of course wholly impracticable, a liaison would have been rewarding in certain fundamental respects. Their pheromones, perhaps, communicated what they could not say in words: “We would be very good in bed together.” 

It hadn’t happened after that first flush, when animosity had become an established facet of their relationship, and trust had yet to be re-earned. And then there was the Cylon, Leoben, with his words of sedition in her ear, his oddly affectionate embrace, and his hasty departure into the universe at large, leaving a void in his wake that she filled instantly with doubt, with fear, with second guesses. 

She had that one thing to thank Ellen Tigh for; because Bill brought her back, but had her tested at once as a possible Cylon, Laura knew that he himself could  _not_  be one. As she should have known all along, really, but for the madness of the life she found herself leading. It made no sense; he had a history. A Cylon might counterfeit the semblance of age, might speak volumes about a manufactured life, but could never produce an actual past, with acquaintances, yearbooks,  _proof_. Adama had proof, she realized, upon even a cursory examination of the timeline involved. He didn’t need a blood test. And only a human would bring back an Ellen for a friend, because  _she was his wife_. One human to another, that explanation sufficed. 

But they had been naïve, then. There was still so much to learn about their new foes, and fear impedes learning. So they stumbled, and halted, and made the wrong choices, and in that way managed to survive many months. 

After that ill-fated dinner party with the Tighs – oh, that Ellen Tigh might have been a Cylon, that she might have been airlocked out of all their lives – they had felt a kinship, the pragmatic alignment of potential adversaries against an even greater evil. The President and the Commander and the Commander’s son, all had shared a language of looks and gestures that night, as only a family could. The filial tie of the rolled eye had rarely been so strong. And after the Tighs had made their drunken way out into the night of the ship, the Adamas and their mother figure had tidied the table as if they had been doing it for decades, swiftly and automatically. If it hadn’t been so very domestic, if Lee had not been so integral a part of their talk that night… but things were as they were. It could not have happened then, because it was not the time. 

After that, there was respect, and a recognition of a common ground. And so they could talk tactics over the glow of the war room table, Laura feeling almost at home now on the bridge of the Galactica. Laura could borrow some of Bill’s pride in his two living children, both the actual and the sentimental, as they demonstrated their ability to follow in his footsteps. Vanquishing the enemy without, although both were still tormented by enemies within. 

And the leaders of humanity could share a dance, feeling oddly at ease with one another, but at the same time  _not_  at ease. It was almost too much, that contact, the conversation, it hinted at the path they had not taken, and in the jostle and flow of the dance floor, if they drew closer to one another and toyed with possibility for just a few stolen moments, nobody would have been much surprised. Nobody would have been the wiser. That was a night for winding up in the wrong bed, if ever there were one. But not the Commander and the President. They were grown-ups, they had all the self-control they needed, and though they each might have thought about it, neither would have dreamed for one second of acting on it. One simply did not, could not, indulge in that way, when one was at the apex of the power structure. Not with one’s counterpart, at any rate. 

Responsibility. Overriding all else, even the pull of male to female, if the responsibility is strong enough. And although they shared a certain trust, by then, neither trusted  _anyone_  else to save humanity; not even one another. For Laura, the care of humanity by way of fulfilling the prophecy of Pythia had become her first, her only, priority; individuals ran last except as far as they served the greater goal of completing her mission, of finding Earth. She was sicker, deeper under the hold of the chamalla, and focused to a degree that was probably not sustainable. Little wonder if he found her somewhat tiresome; fanatics are often boring. One is not likely to think of sleeping with a zealot, if one has not already done so. How could he know that her terrible concentration was brought about, in part, by her attempt to deny the agony that had become her constant companion?

When he threw her in the brig, she was not so much furious as she was resigned, disappointed, in a frenzy of anxiety over how to get out and continue on her mystic journey toward Kobol. When she saw him lying wounded, near death, she had ceased to consider her own feelings on the matter. She reassured Lee that his father would be all right – empty words, except that from the dying leader’s mouth they assumed the weight of prophecy – and returned to her cell. What would be, would be, as had already been so many times before; she was merely an instrument. Convenient, to be an instrument, if it helps one ignore the pain. 

Things might have been different, if it were not for the pain. Her pain, which the chamalla and other drugs could only push into the background, never wholly eliminate. His pain, the amateur surgery that saved him taking nearly as great a toll as the bullets themselves. Neither had any business hiking through rain-swept woods, sleeping on damp ground, trying to carry on as though their bodies were not betraying them. But, as Bill pointed out, it had always been between the two of them; and so they two must play their parts. He came to Kobol, came after Laura and the rest of the family,  _before_  she was vindicated by the discovery of the map. That simple but profound fact was half of what saved them; the fact that she  _was_  vindicated was the other half. That, and finding it together. 

But what they shared on the planet of the Gods was more important than the sex they did not have; their connection, their mutual acceptance that their whole was greater than the sum of their fragile parts, meant they left the planet as a pair, a partnership. They did not need to become lovers, to accomplish that; nor, in their diminished states, was such a cementing of their newfound closeness on their minds. 

If she had felt better, had a few more “good” days left, it might have happened after the Blackbird’s commissioning. But by that time, he knew, everyone knew, and in her heart Laura knew, that she was truly dying. She was beginning to make her peace with it, although the anguish of leaving a job undone was only partly relieved by her trust in Bill – such a long-awaited trust – to carry on without her. 

And by the time Admiral Helena Cain came and went, poisoning everyone’s lives but leaving an invaluable asset in the Pegasus, Laura was simply too ill. Not too sick to be disgusted with the power games Bill and Cain played, but too sick to act on the undeniable chemistry she still felt. Except to warn him of what he already knew, because that was all she could do. That, and promote him. The Admiral is dead, long live the Admiral… but not the President. Bittersweet defined their one kiss, far too late to do anything but smile at the waste. 

Of course, in private, they each squirmed just a bit to think about that kiss, once it became clear that Laura was not, in fact, going to die just yet. But there was little to be done about it. Their tacit agreement to continue as before was sensible, responsible… frustrating. They had missed their window of opportunity, for now, they had gone past it, yet they felt too close not to move in tandem. Denying Starbuck’s request to send a rescue team to Caprica, not even arguing between themselves about it. They talked about other things, but their recovering bodies considered _that_ , and it was very near to happening. It would have been soon. 

It would have been soon, had not Bill made a critical error in judgment, refused to kill his captive Cylon, and gotten Laura’s aide and friend killed in the process. Without their new history, she might not have forgiven him. She forgave him, but she certainly wasn’t going to go so far as to reward him by having sex with him. Not yet, anyway. Even if she had come to rely on him for support, even if he seemed so pleased to give it. Even if, in all other things, they had become so  _mutual_. 

It nearly happened after the success of Laura’s debate against Baltar. They had each given up some of the pretense, and the undercurrent was strong enough to pull them both in at any moment. They had  _laughed_  together, witnessed the creation, together, of inside jokes. Nine months, they had known each other by that point, and it was long enough to breed something like love between them. When Laura took his arm, pressed it to her as she giggled her way out the door, it bespoke a willingness to touch and be touched. 

But the thing needed some significance; the time still had to be right. And she was too busy, too closely scrutinized, during the campaign. After the election, she had told herself. After she won the election. Bill, too, seemed to be biding his time. Until after she won. 

And there was the rub. From where they were, he could be both disappointed in her attempt to steal the election, yet completely understanding of her motive. His body language as he talked her out of it was calm, only his clenched fists betraying the intensity of his emotion, his regret, his lingering admiration for her. 

She had gone down to the planet in shame, hiding her face from the only one whose approval had mattered. Scorn, she could have understood and countered; pity, she could not bear from him. The irony – that now, an affair between them would probably go unnoticed or unremarked by the vast majority of the populace – was lost on neither. But she couldn’t, not with pity, not even with sympathy; his warmth froze her out, and she descended to New Caprica, to where he would not be. 

Laura told herself she was getting on with her life. If it was to be alone, in this dismal landscape, then she would frame her life around that image. She would adapt, as she always had, to new circumstances beyond her control. And, as she already had so very many times in her life, she would push the pain of loss down, and down, and down, until it stayed down, below the surface, only to rear its head in her dreams. It would not define her; William Adama’s absence from her life would not define her, or cause her to alter who she was, or taunt her with the nettles of conscience and should-haves. Not, at least, while she was awake. 

Bill stayed in the sky, becoming a hermit through attrition as his crew slipped away to the planet’s surface. Leaving him more and more alone, with his own pain and regret to manage. He sparred with the heavy bag, but not enough to take care of his anger or his waistline. He felt the torpor of uselessness slip over him, more every day, threatening to drown him with inertia. He missed the battle, and his crew. He missed his son, whose distance was only the keener because they met so regularly. Lee was lost in a fog of his own, his love for Kara and guilt about Dee threatening to consume him entirely; Bill saw it, saw that Lee was still in denial, but could not reach him on the issue. He sometimes felt he reached nobody, on any issue, any more. Least of all Laura, who had left him. Just when he could have loved her. And so he told himself it would have been a disaster, just like the other two, and that it was all for the best. He told himself this so often, he sometimes almost believed it. Almost. 

The denial lasted only until their opportunity was gone. Until he was gone, the Cylon ships replacing the humans’ fleet in the orbit around New Caprica, and only the hope that the fleet had escaped to sustain the resistance. The hope that the fleet would return; it was like their new religion, and the Admiral was the avenging angel, whose return to his beleaguered people had happened over and over again throughout the millennia. If it had happened before, it would happen again. This is what they told themselves to keep warm at night, as the Centurions ranged throughout the encampment. And in her heart, Laura became the high priestess of that new religion, abandoning all pretense that she had ever failed to care, abandoning herself to the admission of love. She spoke for Adama, his voice on New Caprica, and the people listened and hastened to do as she said.

She looked to the sky, and prayed to the Lords of Kobol, and knew that when her Bill returned, as return he must, she would fulfill her role as she was destined, not wasting any more time, not risking the loss of another chance; she would make herself the offering, and if she was worthy, the gods’ chosen warrior would take her in the oldest sacrament there was. They would make love, they would  _be_  love, and in doing so they would sanctify one another. They would sanctify humanity’s escape from the Cylons, and they would emerge from that joining to lead humanity with one voice.  _That_  would be the right time. 

She looked to the sky, and prayed. She led her people to foil the Cylons at every turn, and to make preparations for a hasty departure if the opportunity to run presented itself. She counseled calm, but privately let herself ache for that opportunity. Privately, at last, let herself ache for Bill, as if her longing were the incantation that could charm him into returning. 

She looked to the sky, and prayed. She knew that if the priestess were worthy, the gods would allow the warrior to return. She knew she was creating a fiction to comfort herself, but she told it to herself so well, she no longer cared if it were real. It did not have to be real, to be true.

She looked to the sky, and prayed.

 

 

 

 


End file.
